Today the MN House Committee State Government Finance and Policy discussed MN HF140 (Cyber security support for cities, towns and townships). The bill was laid over.

HF140(Bahner)
State-funded county and city cybersecurity grant program established, report required, and money appropriated.

Representative Bahner:

• Amendment A1:  tech changes to conform with Senate and adding townships with population of 5000.
  Passed.
• Cyber incidents are on the rise especially with AI
• We need to be vigilant – MNIT does a great job
• Smaller cities and towns do not have staff or expertise that MNIT has and they need to upgrade
• It matters to everyone because the networks interact with bigger networks. We’re only as strong as our weakest link

Daniel Lightfoot (MN League of Cities)

• This is a critical need – this bill would help. We are a small city state but they manage a wide range of public works.
• They are a target for ransomware
• 702 cities don’t’ have dedicated IT staff; average staff size is 7 TFE but some have only one
• We provide insurance

Graham Momberg (Townships)

• We support the need for cyber security
• We don’t manage as much as cities but we do manage some
• 1185 towns collect personal data and we don’t always have the expertise to manage it
• We know this is a budget compromise year – but we’re glad to see some towns are included

Questions

Q: Does Eligible city, township and town with population over 5000 means each has to population over 5000 or only the township?
It targets only townships.